Summary: For 40 long years, the Marching Orders for Moses had been: “Take another lap around Mt. Sinai.” Now, at last, Joshua received new Marching Orders. The book of Joshua starts with a bang: Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise and go …

This year both Christmas and New Years day fell on Sunday. That doesn’t happen very often. But it gave us the opportunity to get 2006 off to the right start. At any rate, if your New Years Resolution was to get to Church every Sunday, then … so far so good!

The TEXT tells about a time when the Children of Israel were off to a New Start. Moses had led them for the past 40 years. But now he was dead. In fact, all of the older generation had died off in the wilderness. Joshua and Caleb (good name, by the way!) were the only old guys left.

For 40 long years, the Marching Orders for Moses had been: “Take another lap around Mt. Sinai.” Now, at last, Joshua received new Marching Orders. The book of Joshua starts with a bang: Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise and go … Joshua 1:2 Now THAT is a way to start something NEW! The Message Version puts it like this: "Moses my servant is dead --- so get going!”

We can learn a lot from those Marching Orders. And the first lesson is that THE PAST IS BEHIND YOU.

1. The past is behind you

Joshua and the people faced a paradigm shift of enormous proportions.

• They were about to quit being nomads and become landowners.

• They would soon leave their tents and move into homes.

• They would quit eating Manna and start enjoying harvested crops that other had planted.

• They would go off of Defense and start playing Offense. For 40 years they had avoided trouble by walking around it. Now it was time to face trouble head-on as Warriors.

It was time to leave their “slave days” far behind and enjoy days of freedom in a land flowing with milk and honey.

You see, Moses was dead, but God’s Purpose was very much alive. This was no time to stand around grieving --- or reminiscing about the good old days --- or thinking about all the regrets and the “what if’s” of the past 40 years. It was not time to think about the past at all. It was time to move forward. The saying on John Wesley’s grave helps us carry home the point: God buries his workmen, but His work goes on.

On this New Years Day, maybe thoughts of the past are holding you back. It’s easy to get bogged down in regrets over things we can’t change. Maybe you took some wrong steps last year. Maybe you suffered some painful losses. Maybe someone let you down or you had a big disappointment. It’s time to listen to Joshua’s marching orders: The past is dead. Now, arise and go into the New Year.

Years ago, a thunderstorm swept through southern Kentucky and blew over an old Pear Tree on a farm where the Claypool family had lived for 6 generations. Old Grandpa John Claypool grieved to lose the tree he had climbed as a boy. For all his life, he had enjoyed eating the pears off that old tree.

A neighbor came by and said, “John, I’m really sorry to see that fine old Pear Tree blown down.”

For 40 long years, the Marching Orders for Moses had been: “Take another lap around Mt. Sinai.” Now, at last, Joshua received new Marching Orders. The book of Joshua starts with a bang: Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise and go …

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